By fumbling
error and slow competence
We learn to earn - the money part of living.
We then retire and find the true expense
Is somehow we forgot the art of living.
Before we know, "the world is not for aye,"
An immortality makes childhood sing.
The poet says the problem we must try,
"Is what to make of a diminished thing."
The sonnet is a world diminished so;
The octet poses problems, dark and drear,
Dilemmas, questions, sorrows, pain and woe,
The sestet then resolves with answers clear,
Iambic, little world of measured time.
The final problem is to make it rhyme.